13 June 2011

Thanks for the emails. This does feel weird knowing I’ll be home before next Monday comes around. Congrats Dave and Elizabeth.

This week went really well. We had 8 investigators at church. We’re looking at 2 baptisms on the 25th and 2 more on the 2nd of July. My companion will keep baptizing, which is really great because Elder Peña’s been called to train. That’s so cool. It makes me feel good because I just trained him. And he’s feeling good because it shows that the Lord trusts him. there are few elders that train in their first area. If his new companion is from the USA, he’ll have just 6 weeks more than him. Ha, Ha, that’s funny.

I gave a talk in church. I had planned to talk about the Sabbath day and the sacrament; that just didn’t feel right. So at the last second I talked about the things I learned on my mission. It was cool because we had two visitors from the stake, two freshly returned missionaries, a sister and an elder. The sister served in Argentina and the elder served in Idaho.

Thanks for the pictures. I think that’s it for now. I don’t feel like this has to be super long. Thanks for the support and prayers. I love you all. The Lord has truly blessed me during these two years of service. I know even more than ever that the church is true, that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith really saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, we truly have a living prophet.

Thanks again for the sacrifices you have all made for me so that I could be here.

Love,
Elder Whitaker

6 June 2011

Thanks for the emails. I’m a little stressed out right now because it’s raining. As a result the email place was closed. I guess the regular 10 year old customers don’t play internet games when it’s raining. Bummer. So after leaving and coming back a couple of times we jumped on a bus to another email joint. Be glad you have a computer with internet in your house. It’s a lovely thing.

Other than that, this Sunday was awesome. We had two confirmations, our four recent converts all showed up, and we had 7 investigators. That’s big. Silvia, who got confirmed yesterday, brought her sister and mom. They have baptismal dates for June 25. The daughter and grandson of another recent convert came; unfortunately they don’t live in our area. We found two 9 year old girls who are twins that belong to a part-member family and they came. They’re technically not even investigators yet; our first lesson with them will be tonight. Oh, and our ward mission leader’s sister came. Our ward mission leader loves us.

We also had a really good week this week focusing on heaven-sent questions or inspired questions. The church has new Preach My Gospel dvds and one of the sections taught us about that. The Spirit knows the investigator perfectly, so let the Spirit ask the questions. A cool quote was “heaven respects agency so much that it will draw and never drag things out of people.” With inspired questions we were able to help someone feel the need to find their Book of Mormon and read it, we helped someone know that God loves them, we helped someone realize that they already believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It’s been really cool. I wish I could’ve figured this out earlier. An explanation of the picture – that is the Montevideo International Airport. I can see it from various locations in my area, and all the planes the land there we see and hear coming in, a constant reminder that I’m going to be inside that airport soon. It’s weird. But I feel good. We’re working hard. I’m positive I’ll leave this are baptizing. There’s nothing worse than arriving to a dead area.

And Mom asked if I had menu suggestions for when I get back. I think you could pretty much guess what I would like to eat – the same stuff I asked you to make before. I’ll be happy with pretty much anything as long as it isn’t “this will help you on your mission when they serve you weird food.” And with respect to that mission preparation, I got pretty lucky here in Uruguay; there wasn’t that much weird food.

I think that’s about it. Just so you know, Tuesday is transfer day. I’ll take all my gear to the temple hostel. At 3 PM we’re going to the temple with President and Sister da Silva. That night we will have a FHE with President and interviews. On Wednesday morning we’ll finish packing and have some time to hang out, maybe visit some people or places in Montevideo. At 3 PM we head off to the airport and leave at 5ish.

Thanks for everything. I love you all lots.

Elder Whitaker

30 May 2011

Thanks for the emails. This week was really good. Here’s a few photos – 3 of the baptism we had on Sunday - Agustin and his mom, unbaptized step-dad, brother, Elder Echegaray – Area Authority Seventy – and Elder Peña and ISilvia, her cousin baptizing her, the cousin’s wife and kids, Silvia’s unbaptized mom and sister and useveryone that went to the baptism minus Elder Peña and meAnd the last photo was last week when I was sick. I had a 39° Celsius fever, but I’m better. It happens.

So our baptism was really cool. It says somewhere in the missionary handbook of Preach My Gospel to always leave your area better than how it was when you got there. Our area is a lot better. We’ve been able to have 4 baptisms in 3 months. Last year they had like 6 and unfortunately few are still active. Agustin who got baptized yesterday has a great musical talent. The branch president gave him a green hymn book last Sunday. In one week he learned at leave 5 hymns – 3 for sacrament meeting and 2 for his baptism. You could really perceive the difference in the meetings. It’s a big deal not having a brand pianist for years and then getting one. I told him how Mom was the Primary pianist at 12 years old. He’s 11.

It was really cool to have an area authority seventy at the baptism. After the welcoming into the branch he was given a little bit of time to speak. It was really spiritual. You can feel the authority of his calling, even though he didn’t say anything that I haven’t heard before. It really called my attention that he had the expectation that Silvia and Agustin will always be faithful until the end. Unfortunately, not everyone has such hope in people.

I can’t think of anything else to say. I’m still working hard and trying to end on a baptism. It’ll be tough but it can happen.

I love you all so much. Thanks for the support and prayers.

Elder Whitaker

23 May 2011

Thanks for the emails. It sounds like everyone is doing well.

First off, Dave asked a question about what I eat here. The members take care of us very well and provide lunch. It depends on your area and how many active members there are for the frequency of the lunches. I've had areas where we have lunch every day. Currently we fend for ourselves 2 or 3 times a week. They serve us pasta with tomatoes and meat sauce, fideo con tuco, or fried meat, milanesas, with rice. Sometimes they do grilled meat, asado, with rice. Every now and then we get the Uruguayan shepherd's pie, pastel de carne. And in the winter we get a lot of stew called guiso. It's rice and/or pasta with meat and vegetables, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions . . . really good. There's a lot of variety and it's good. We eat enough at lunch to get us through till night, and even then usually I don't eat anything, or very little at night and just wait for breakfast. And for breakfast I buy a 3 kilo bag of frosted flakes and that keeps me going. I've never eaten so much cereal in my life.

So this Sunday was good for us. We're going to have 2 baptisms next Sunday. There's a cool story for why we're doing them Sunday. Their names are Silvia and Agustin. They're in no way related. Silvia, 15, is the cousin of a member, Javier. Javier just got married and his wife got baptized when we got here. We finally taught Silvia everything and now she's getting baptized. The second person is Agustin, 11 years old. His mom was more or less inactive, due to the fact that she isn't married, and her partner is not divorced yet. Because of this Agustin was never baptized. Agustin and his mom asked an old family friend to baptize him. This family friend is Elder Echagaray and he's an Area Authority Seventy. They coordinated with him, then called President de Silva, and President da Silva called us telling us to do everything in our power to make it so this elder could baptize Agustin. Area Authority Seventies are busy people; Sunday at 5 is when he can do it. Cool. I've never had a Seventy come to a baptism before. I'm way excited.

Thanks for all the support and prayers. Don't worry about me. I feel great. I'm working in the same intensity that I've worked my whole mission. We're still running. We're trying to finish in white.

Love, Elder Whitaker

15 May 2011

Thanks for the emails. It sounds like everyone is doing well. Wow, this keyboard is great – all the letters are still printed on all the keys and none of them stick after using them!

This Sunday we had stake conference. It’s weird that we’re in May and I’ve already attended two stake conferences. Our ward mission leader was in charge of the choir. So to help him out we practiced one or two times after church with him. It was originally a branch choir, but it turned out to be a stake choir. We sand “I’ll Go where You want Me to Go” and “The Day Dawn is Breaking.” And thanks to that I got to sit next to President da Silva. He was surprised to see us up there. It was cool to sit on the stand. It’s a lot more quiet up top. I didn’t hear any disruption at all. I can see how it would be easier to feel the inspiration as a speaker to say what the Lord would want said. President da Silva spoke and the counselor to the temple president – Brother Kenney who served here at the same time as Grandpa. He finishes his mission in one week. They talked a lot about missionary work. That was cool. A recently returned sister from the stake gave her testimony. Just by listening I could tell she was a really good missionary. That was confirmed when President da Silva said he would have liked her in his mission. I know he doesn’t say that about everyone. I think that could be one of the most powerful compliments one could receive.

So last week we got an interesting email forwarded to us from the area presidency. In the email it said to print out the attachment and treat it as scripture. It was a 12-week study schedule to train new missionaries. It allows us an extra hour of companion studies every day except P-day and the day we do our weekly planning. It’s focused on the eight new focuses we have. It’s been cool following a new study plan. I’m wondering if this is something that came from Elder Arnold and maybe if it works it’ll be used worldwide. It’s a trainer and his new companion study program, but right now the whole mission is doing it. Cool.

And last night as we studied a bit I learned something cool. In John 14:26 it talks about how the Holy Ghost brings all things to our remembrance. That made me think of the sacrament prayers that say if you remember Christ you can always have the spirit. It becomes either an upward spiral or a downward spiral. If I remember Christ, the Holy Ghost helps me remember him more and better and that gets me the Holy Ghost more which helps me be more purified. But it works the same in reverse. Cool.

I think that’s it. Thanks for the prayers and letters. I love you all lots.

Elder Whitaker

9 May 2011

Thanks for the emails. It was nice to call home and talk with Mom and Dad and Steven and Michelle.

A few comments from last week’s emails – Dave, freshman year at BYU I got called to be secretary in my Elder’s quorum by a president I had never met. He never met me either. It was a miscommunication between the president and the high council member and some other things that I don’t remember. But as we started working together we realized it was what the Lord had in mind. Cool.

Brad, some advice for your brother-in-law as he is about to be set apart as a full-time missionary – Mom took notes of my setting apart and typed them up for me. It was something so small that I have been eternally grateful for. No missionary that I’ve talked to remembers really well their setting apart. I remember a lot thanks to Mom. I would recommend recording it if there isn’t any instruction manual saying you can’t. He’ll love you for that.

This week church was great. The three people, youngsters actually, that should be getting baptized May 28th came to church. The secret to their success is this: one is the son of a less-active member, one is the niece of our ward mission leader, and the other is a cousin of a recently activated member. Awesome.

But it wasn’t all roses this week. President Brigham Young made a wonderful quote once about whenever the saints start to build another temple the bells of hell begin to ring. President Young said, “Let them ring.” We’ve been hearing those bells all week.

One of our investigator’s suddenly fell sick and passed away. His name was Miguel; he was the one that got married the week after we got here. Unfortunately, he didn’t progress as he should have. It’s really sad. It was cool to see the branch work together to help this family. Natalia is now a widow with two young daughters.

Apart from that almost all of our lessons failed us and we lost a few more investigators.

Oh Megan, I read a talk last week and thought of you – Elder Perry’s “Mothers Teaching Children in the Home.” It was one of the past few conferences. My advice would be to teach your class as if they were Wyatt. Or teach your class to teach you how to teach Wyatt. It was a really good talk. Or you could practice your lessons teaching Wyatt. Oh, and I liked the photos. Thanks.

Oh, and Mom, remember Elder Thornton who was in my area before I got here and you saw his blog? I called him last night to tell him about Miguel. He said he’s been updated by his dad by my blog. Cool. So here’s a shout out to Brother Thornton. Elder Thornton is a great elder.

I love you all. Thanks for the support.

Elder Whitaker

2 May 2011

Thanks for all the emails. It’s good to hear that everything is going well. So last night came the transfer calls. It was interesting being at the bottom of the phone call chain instead of being at the top. We’re both staying together. Of the ten companionships in our zone all of them but two had transfers.

So this Sunday was death. It rained big time, and to make things better it was Labor Day I guess – the one day in the year that the bus system is completely turned off. I read an interesting quote about hope this morning, but being realistic yesterday we didn’t have much hope for anyone coming. We had 13 at church; sacrament meeting ended when everyone bore their testimonies. It was cool though.

We’re still excited. We’re hoping to have three baptisms next month. From what I have heard, two people from my last area got baptized last transfer.

What other cool miracles happened last week? We’re seeing a lot of miracles. We invited our Elder’s Quorum President to a couple of lessons and it turned out the investigator we were teaching was an old co-worker of his. That was unexpected.

Thanks for the pictures. It looks like everyone is doing well. I think that’s it for now. I love you all.

Elder Whitaker

25 April 2011

I’m sending some cool photos – one of our Easter celebration, 2 of our baptism, and one of my companion and I doing our post-baptism celebration jump,but a better caption would be “putting on our game faces.” There’s proof that there’s still room to mature more.

So we’re teaching a Jehovah’s Witness who is a life long friend of our branch mission leader. I’ve wanted to baptize a Jehovah’s Witness all of my mission. We’ll see what happens with Ana Laura.

Easter was a really good day and I was able to have significantly spiritual experiences. While I was showering the song “Tell me the Stories of Jesus” came to my mind and got me thinking about a talk Elder Andersen gave Easter morning in last year’s general conference. I read it while I ate breakfast. That led me to a wonderful confirmation of Christ’s resurrection.

During sacrament meeting Maria Elena was confirmed. I felt the Spirit really strongly when she was instructed to receive the Holy Ghost. That was cool. And Elder Peña and I got to pass the sacrament.

I’ve been working on repenting daily and that helped me have a better experience as I renewed my covenants.

As I was studying my patriarchal blessing the word “special” called my attention. There are four specific special things in my blessing. They were interesting to note.

But thanks everyone. I love you all lots. I hope you all enjoyed Easter.

Love, Elder Whitaker

18 April 2011

This week went really well. We found some cool new investigators on Saturday night. Unfortunately, it rained Sunday morning. We got our legs wet walking to church. It was really windy too. Interestingly enough, once we walked into the gate of the church all the wind stopped blowing. Interesting. But we did have one investigator at church this weekend and it was Maria Elena whose pareja died when we got here. She’s getting baptized next Saturday. We’re excited for that.

Because of the rain, an already small branch became smaller. There were 18 of us at church. I got to say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and bless the sacramental bread. That was a wonderful experience.

So I’m still studying hearts in the Book of Mormon. I’m categorizing the huge list I have into feelings of the heart, actions of the heart, and states of the heart. I also counted the specific phrases that show up the most – hardened hearts, hard hearts, pride for your hearts – it’s interesting.

So yesterday I woke up early at like 6:23. I still had 7 minutes so I fell asleep again. In those 7 minutes I had a dream. I dreamed I was teaching a man about tithing, and right when I woke up I was about to teach him the eternal principle of budgeting. I never tried teaching someone how to budget. It was interesting – the dreams one dreams as a missionary . . .

Oh, and something that I was wondering last week. I’ve gotten a few “run through the finish” emails recently, but if I remember correctly I started sending Brad “run through the finish” emails when he had six months left. I was kind of getting ahead of myself, Brad, sorry. But I was wondering if you have any of my old letters hanging around. It would be interesting to get a letter from myself from 2 or 4 or 6 years ago, maybe not 6 years, I don’t remember writing to Weston, sorry.

I think that’s it for now. Thanks for all the support. Thanks for the prayers. I love you all.

Elder Whitaker

11 April 2011

This week was good, but there’s a lot of opposition. The bapsisms that we were supposed to have last Saturday will be postponed even more. Now they’re married, but aren’t going to church and still smoking. We really need the spirit now to find out what their real problem is. The first excuse never is the real problem.

But we did have an investigator at church yesterday. Her name is Silvia. She’s 15 years old. Her cousin, Javier, just got married to Valeria, and Valeria got baptized our first week here. She’s good. We don’t really have to do much to keep her going.

So Sunday morning at 3:30 AM something interesting happened. What was a drippy pipe behind the sink became a fire hose. I’m in the middle of a wonderful dream when my companion wakes me up with the lights on asking for help. We worked all we could to get that thing to stop. We live behind the owners and we didn’t know where the water line was. We thought it was the same water for the two houses because there’s just one bill. After a while and a few prayers, Elder Peña grabs a white pencil and sticks it in the wall. He fixed it. Cool. It worked for more than 24 hours. And today we fixed it for real. The owner loves us because we didn’t make him do it. That was the adventure for the week. So I decided today that it was time to follow the advice President Uchtdorf gave in the priesthood session. if I don’t do it now I’ll forget. So I read D&C 20 today and I still have to read 84 and 107 and 121. I learned a lot. I didn’t realize it talks so much about baptism in the Doctrine and Covenants – the doctrine of the priesthood.

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting. My companion and the branch mission leader did too. I spoke about the doctrine of Christ, 2 Nephi 31 and 3 Nephi 11, and the conversion of Sanford Porter Senior. In Preach My Gospel it says that the best way to help members trust you as a missionary and have enthusiasm for doing missionary work is to help them understand the doctrine of Christ. That was the idea behind the talk.

We found a new family this week. We’ll see what happens with them. I’m still finding all the different references to hearts in the Book of Mormon. I’m on like the 5th page. I got to Helaman this morning. But I think that’s it. Thanks for everything. I love you all. Keep doing what you’re doing. I was going to send a picture or two, but the computer doesn’t read that I have my pen drive in it. Oh well.

Love, Elder Whitaker

4 April 2011

This week was a good one. Something really interesting that marked this week was one of our investigators passed away. Gualberto passed away the day after we got to our area and the day after we met him. We met him our first Wednesday, he passed away on Thursday, and we visited them the next Tuesday. That was unexpected. But we only met him once so we were less affected than the other elders would be. Ironically, the fight with him and Maria Elena was getting to get married. That’s not a problem now. We are helping Maria Elena. She really surprised us by coming to three sessions of conference. I felt that a lot of the talks were directed to her. She should be getting baptized the 23rd of April. Unfortunately, she was the only one who went to conference, so the couple that is getting married this week will have to postpone their baptism. It’s tough. We couldn’t contact them yesterday so they don’t know they’ll have to wait more, but I feel good with the counsel Elder Christofferson gave – divine correction. Hopefully, we will be able to convey a lesson that has an everlasting impact on their lives, and they react in a way to make it a good one. I finished the Book of Mormon. I found like 424 references to the heart. I miscounted; I think it should be more like 422, but you can get the idea. I invite you to check for me . . . . And now I’m making a list of the specific phrases that are used. I have four pages and I’ve only gotten to Alma. Corazon endurecido is a big favorite (hardened heart); it has more than 30 hits already. So I really enjoyed Elder Christofferson’s talk and the one after his about being and doing (Elder Robbins). President Monson’s priesthood session talk was interesting. You can only guess what I got out of that. General conference is to guide us for the next six months of our life. He made things really clear. I also thought it was interesting that they made two references to the fact that the father is the head of the family and the mother is the heart. I never thought about that before. I think that’s it for now. Thanks for everything. I love you all lots. Love, Elder Whitaker

28 March 2011

This week was cool. I met my new companion, Elder Peña. He is from Santiago, Chile. He is a third generation member, the first missionary from his immediate family. He has an uncle or two that were missionaries. He is the oldest son in his family. He has three younger sisters and a younger brother. He’s really good. One of my biggest worries was that I’d have to lower my level or speed with my new companion. That won’t be a problem at all. So far we’ve been getting to know the area and the members. The other elders left some good directions and a good map to get us up to pace really quickly. [Note: he replaced Elder Thornton, and you can find his blog here.] And yeah, we did have a baptism our first Saturday. Valeria married Javier on Thursday, and Valeria got baptized by Javier on Saturday, and I got to confirm her on Sunday. We have a branch and this Sunday there were like 30 or 40 people. The other missionaries were working well and we inherited an excited branch. They trust us already and are excited to help us. My area is located in Montevideo, but it’s at the border. Our area ends where Montevideo meets Canelones, and the main highway is called Camino Maldonado. It’s on the way to Pando, a little town Grandpa opened for two weeks and then realized they didn’t have any success and got shipped out. My district leader is in Pando; maybe I’ll be able to go visit one day. I’m excited for general conference. I’m in 3 Nephi 18. I need to read about 100 pages more before Sunday. Oh, and Megan, the other day you wrote that you gave a Book of Mormon to a friend. I forgot to tell you what we do. We learned this from Elder Arnold of the Seventy. When we introduce the Book of Mormon for the first time, we read the first paragraph of the introduction and let them tell us what they got out of it. Then we read the second to last paragraph and discuss a bit, then the last paragraph. Then we invite them to be baptized and place a specific date. It would be cool to get a referral that already has a baptismal date. I don’t know if regular members can set baptismal dates; I don’t see why not though. I think that’s it for now. Thanks for the support and prayers. I love you all. Elder Whitaker